Legislation Affecting LGBT Rights Across the Country

Updated every Monday

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in America face discrimination in their daily lives. A majority of states allow discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. While there are more states every day that strive to pass laws to protect their citizens from discrimination, many legislatures sponsor bills that invoke religion, pre-empt local protections, and target transgender people to allow discrimination.

All people – including those who are gay or transgender– should be treated fairly and equally by the laws of their state, and should have the opportunity to earn a living, access housing, and participate fully in society.

*Note: Bills are reported as Active below if they were introduced in their states' 2017 legislative sessions and have carried over to 2018. The status date indicates the convening of the state's 2018 session or the most currently active on a particular bill.

Comprehensive nondiscrimination bills prohibit discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity (or only gender identity if state law already covers sexual orientation), in a range of contexts, including employment, housing, and public accommodations. Comprehensive bills do not have overly broad religious exemptions or other carve-outs that allow discrimination against LGBT people.

Incomplete nondiscrimination bills include those that lack gender identity protections, those that do not prevent discrimination in all key contexts, and those that contain broad religious exemptions language or carve-outs, including for sex-segregated facilities.

These measures target transgender people for discrimination, such as by barring access to or even criminalizing the use of appropriate facilities, including restrooms, restricting transgender students’ ability to fully participate in school, authorizing healthcare discrimination against trans people, allowing religiously-motivated discrimination against trans people, or making it more difficult for trans people to get identification documents with their name and gender.

Make it easier for people to demand exemptions to generally applicable laws by allowing lawsuits challenging any governmental policy (such as nondiscrimination laws) that someone says substantially burdens their religious beliefs. The government must prove that enforcing the policy is the least restrictive way of furthering a compelling governmental interest.

Allow anyone - including government employees, contractors, and for profit businesses – to act with impunity based on religious beliefs or moral convictions regarding marriage for same-sex couples, sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage, and transgender people. This would open the door to unprecedented taxpayer-funded discrimination. For example, government employees, government contractors or grantees – including those providing important social services like homeless shelters or drug treatment programs -- could discriminate against married same-sex couples and their families, single mothers, or anyone who has a sexual relationship outside of a marriage.

Would allow those with religious objections to undermine professional standards that apply equally to everyone. For instance, a high school guidance counselor could refuse to counsel a gay teenager, citing their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Adoption and foster care agencies could refuse to provide any adoption services that would conflict with the sincerely held religious beliefs of the agency, regardless of the best interests of the children in their care.

These bills create different types of religiously based exemptions regarding marriage. Some of these bills apply to religious organizations, while others authorize discrimination by commercial entities or government officials. Some bills explicitly target same sex couples and others would allow discrimination based on beliefs about any marriage.

These bills prevent cities and other local government entities from passing nondiscrimination protections that are more expansive than the protections offered at the state level, including protections for LGBT people.